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MEMOIR 



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HON. JOSHUA ATHERTON. 



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BOSTON: 
CBOSDY, NICHOLS, AND COMPANY. 
1852. ■ 




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MEMOIR 



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HON. JOSHUA ATHERTON. 






BOSTON: 

CROSBY, NICHOLS, AND COMPANY. 

1852. 






PRINTED, NOT PUBLISHED. 



1 



CAMBRIDGE: 
METCALF AND COMPANY, 

PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY. 



MEMOIR 

OF THE 

HON. JOSHUA ATHEETON, 

BY HIS SON, 

CHARLES H. ATHERTON. 



My father was born at Harvard, in the county of 
Worcester, Massachusetts, near the Nashua (called 
at this place Still River), June 20th, 1737. He was 
the son of Peter Atherton of Harvard, who married 
Experience Wright of Andover. Their sons were 
three, viz. Peter, the eldest, Joshua, the subject of 
this Memoir, and Israel. Peter Atherton, the father, 
was a blacksmith by trade, and a man of some little 
note, being a magistrate, a colonel of the Massachu- 
setts militia, and a member of the General Court at 
the time of his death, which happened at Concord, in 
the county of Middlesex, on the 13th of June, 1764, 
when he was sixty years of age, and in attendance 
there as the representative from Harvard. The occa- 
sion of his sudden death was an attack of the bilious 
colic. Peter, the son, was the farmer, and occupied 
the old homestead. Israel was from his youth des- 



4 

tined for a liberal education. Joshua was intended 
to follow the footsteps of his father as a farmer and 
blacksmith ; but a severe bilious fever so enfeebled 
him, and shattered his constitution, that the idea of 
his acquiring a livelihood by manual labor was aban- 
doned, and his parents consented that he should pre- 
pare for college, and overtake Israel in his studies, if 
he could. Being about twenty years of age, he was 
put under the tuition of the Rev. Timothy Harring- 
ton, then the settled minister of the neighboring 
town of Lancaster. 

At twenty-one years of age he, and his brother 
Israel at seventeen years, entered Cambridge College 
in the same class, in the year 1758, and were both 
graduated in the year 1T62. Francis Dana, after- 
wards Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Massa- 
chusetts, Elbridge Gerry, afterwards Governor of 
Massachusetts, and Jeremiah Belknap, the historian 
of New Hampshire, were of the same class. The 
alphabetical arrangement of the members of a class 
was not adopted till 1773. Before that time they 
took their line in the class according to an imputed 
dignity supposed to be derived from their parents. 
The sons of the great officers of the government and 
of College, according to their grade, ranked first, 
and then the sons of clergymen. After them the 
sons of justices of the peace, farmers, mechanics, &c. 

The class of 1762 consisted of forty-seven mem- 
bers, and Joshua Atherton and Israel Atherton are 
placed somewhat nearer the head than the foot. 
They are placed before Gerry and Belknap ; while 
Ebenezer Champney, who will long be remembered 
by the citizens of the county of Hillsborough as their 
excellent Judge of Probate from 1793 to the time of 



his death in 1810, being the son of a poor mechanic 
of Cambridge, took his station the last but one in the 
class. 

My uncle Israel selected the profession of medi- 
cine, and put himself under the guidance of the 
celebrated Edward A. Holyoke of Salem, and estab- 
lished himself at Lancaster, about four miles from 
his mother, who was now the surviving parent. He 
devoted himself exclusively to his profession, and 
acquired skill and eminence in it. He deceased in 
1822, at the age of eighty-one years. Joshua, my 
father, took to the profession of the law, and com- 
menced the study under Abel Willard of Lancaster, 
and completed his term under James Putnam of 
Worcester, who was the King's Attorney-General for 
the Province of Massachusetts, and an eminent jurist 
of that day. He was admitted to the bar in the 
county of Worcester, May term, 1765, and immedi- 
ately opened his office at Petersham in the same 
county, where he purchased a small tenement. The 
high repute of New Hampshire as a place of busi- 
ness for an aspiring and an active young man, and 
the flourishing account given of the rich intervales in 
Litchfield, on the Merrimack, soon induced him to 
abandon Petersham, and try his fortune at Litchfield, 
where he opened his office in the fall of 1765. 

In the mean time, to wit, in November, 1765, 
when twenty-eight years of age, he married Abigail 
Goss, daughter of the Pev. Thomas Goss, then the 
settled clergyman of Bolton, and removed her to the 
mansion-house of his mother in Harvard, where his 
eldest child, Frances, was born. This angel of a 
wife and mother was little more than sixteen years 
of age at the time of her marriage. His attachment 



. 6 

to her commenced in the last year of his College life, 
while keeping the grammar school at Bolton, which 
she attended as a scholar. In the joyous day of her 
nuptials, little did this young girl know or think of 
the trials, hardships, and mortifications of her future 
life. My father took her to Litchfield in the year 
1767, and resided in the house afterwards occupied 
by Wiseman Clagett, and subsequently by his son, 
Clifton Clagett. In 1768 he moved on to the other 
side of the river, to Merrimack, where he purchased 
a small farm and house, the same that was subse- 
quently occupied by Stephen Lund, about a quarter 
of a mile below Thornton's Ferry, on the river road. 
Here he resided in the profitable engagements of his 
profession till the early part of the summer of 1773, 
when he moved to Amherst, having purchased the 
farm and dwelling-house of Major Robert Read. 

At this home he spent the residue of his life, ex- 
cept when absent on business, and when he was a 
prisoner. The house and part of the farm are now 
(1852) occupied by Ebenezgr Rhodes. 

At Merrimack his practice as a lawyer had become 
respectable and profitable. Here resided his old and 
constant friend, Edward Goldstone Lutwich, a retired 
colonel of the British army, a man acquainted with 
the world, used to good society, and withal a man 
of refined literary taste. He left this neighbor- 
hood with reluctance. His controlling inducement 
to remove to Amherst was that he had been appoint- 
ed the Register of Probate for the new county of 
Hillsborough, John GofFe of Gofi'stown being the 
Judge; that by the act dividing the Province into 
counties, allowed by George the Third, and pub- 
lished here on the 19th of March, 1771, Amherst 



was established to be the shire town of the county. 
Rockingham had ceased to be the only county in the 
Province, and courts were to be held at other local- 
ities than Portsmouth. 

His professional popularity continued to increase. 
Affluence seemed within his reach. His farm had 
been paid for. Improvements in his real estate and 
buildings were surrounding him with comforts. His 
heart was filled with the generous aspirations of a 
young man who felt the advantages which his talents 
and education gave him, who honored his profession, 
and loved his king, to whom he had sworn allegiance, 
and the country where were the graves of his ancestors. 
But this prospect, so fraught with hope and encour- 
agement, was soon to be most sadly reversed. The con- 
troversy between the Colonies and the mother coun- 
try increased in exasperation and bitterness, and Mr. 
Atherton, most unfortunately for himself and family, 
was an open and a firm Loyalist. He was utterly 
opposed to all those measures the tendency of which 
was to bring the controversy to the trial of arms, for 
in that trial his convictions were, the Colonies must 
fail, that success would continue to follow the Brit- 
ish arms, and that we should be subjugated prov- 
inces, at the mercy of an exasperated and jealous 
victor. Not insensible to the wrongs inflicted upon 
us by the mother country, he thought a war with her 
would be fatal to the liberties which we claimed, and 
to which we were entitled. 

England was then at the acme of her power. 
France, Spain, and Holland had succumbed to her 
naval superiority. The whole ocean was her domain. 
Her navies rode triumphant on every sea. How 
could the thirteen Colonies, whose population was 



8 

about three millions only, — destitute of powder, can- 
non, and arms, and particularly deficient in money, 
the sinew of war, — not bound together by any 
general government, and when a temporary govern- 
ment had little more than the power of recommenda- 
tion to these thirteen distinct Colonies, — wage a suc- 
cessful war of any duration against such a power"? 
Although a Colonial Royalist at that time might have 
been willing, with Patrick Henry, to exclaim, " Give 
me liberty, or give me death," he may, I think, yet 
be pardoned, if, under the circumstances, he was of 
opinion that war was not the way to secure that 
liberty, but that probably it would convert the ille- 
gitimate claims of England into a firm and indubita- 
ble right of conquest. I think he may be pardoned 
in flattering himself that the sympathy for the rights 
and claims of the Colonies, which manifested itself 
in various parts of England, and particularly in 
London, would soon spread over the whole nation, 
and produce a change in a corrupt and perverse 
administration, and establish a ministry favorable to 
our just and reasonable demands. 

These opinions and feelings of Mr. Atherton made 
him, however, extremely unpopular. He was early 
branded with the odious name of " Tory." He had 
become too conspicuous in the county of Hillsbor- 
ough, as an advocate and counsellor, not to have se- 
cret, as well as open enemies. The most unkind, 
false, and malicious surmises were circulated against 
him, with the disposition on the part of almost every 
Whig to believe them. He and his family were sub- 
jected to continual reproaches and insults from the 
populace. These things were grievous to bear. His 
Whig friends, for he had many such, entreated him. 



with tears in their eyes, to unite with them. His 
fellow-Loyalists besought him to join them in flying 
to the mother country, or to the British Provinces of 
Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. He would do 
neither. He was determined not to abandon his 
country, but to abide the result, whether for weal or 
woe, and he could not conscientiously join the revo- 
lutionists. 

After the foray at Concord and Lexington, April 
19th, 1775, and the battle of Bunker Hill, June 
17th, 1775, the populace became extremely indig- 
nant and insolent. The revolutionary excitement 
increasing, affairs soon grew too hot for the royal 
Governor of the Province, John Wentworth. He 
retired for security first to the fort at Portsmouth, 
on the 12th of June, 1775, and subsequently in ef- 
fect abdicated the government, by escaping to the 
Isle of Shoals, under the protection of the Scarbor- 
ough and other British ships of war. Government 
in New Hampshire was not only crippled, but pros- 
trated. In this condition of things, the situation of 
Mr. Atherton, before quite uncomfortable, became 
perilous in the extreme. In fact, government was 
dissolved in this State ; and that the people, loosened 
from all restraint, did not proceed to greater out- 
rages than they did, is remembered to their last- 
ing honor. The laws and institutions which were 
derived from England had made us a sober and law- 
abiding people. These habits had been so firmly 
stamped upon the character of the people, that they 
continued in the main to be governed by them when 
there was no legal authority to enforce them. 

Mr. Atherton, however, was subjected to all sorts 
2 



10 

of gibes and reproaches ; even his wife and children 
did not escape these indignities. His house was sev- 
eral times surrounded by a rabble. He was called 
forth and marched up to Captain Ephraim Hildreth's, 
who kept a tavern near the old meeting-house, which 
was used as a court-house, near what is now the 
mansion of Colonel Levi Jones. He bore these in- 
dignities with as much philosophy and good humor 
as he could command. These ceremonies terminated 
by a bountiful supply of flip, punch, and toddy, at 
Mr. Atherton's expense. The mob dispersed in good 
nature, tossing up their hats with huzzas for the 
Tory, and expressing their regrets that so generous a 
man was not one of the sons of liberty. These visits 
were repeated, probably as much for the treat and 
frolic as to vindicate the rights of the country. It 
would perhaps be uncharitable to say that, with 
their other fervors, the fervor of patriotism did not 
predominate. 

A remarkable feature of those gatherings was, 
persons friendly to my father, and not averse to his 
political views, but who nevertheless had the address 
to keep themselves in good repute with the populace, 
mingled themselves with these mobs, with a view to 
prevent excessive outrage, and also to advise Mr. 
Atherton what conduct on his part would be the 
safest. 

Let not the modern reader be surprised at the 
foregoing relation. In our present prevalence of 
law, general refinement, and civilization, it may 
be difficult to conceive where a mob can be found 
among our population. However this may be, it 
is undoubted that at that period there were to be 



11 

found among us the ingredients of which mobs are 
composed. 

It is a most pleasant and gratifying reflection, that, 
amidst all the fervors of the people, whether patri- 
otic or otherwise, nothing appeared more remote 
from them than bloodthirstiness. The French Rev- 
olution had not occurred, and they had not before 
them the example of revolutionary blood-shedding. 
They had not been instructed in the despatch with 
which suspected persons could be eased of their 
heads by the quick motion of the guillotine. There 
were here no noyades and republican marriages, as 
they were called, by which females were chained to 
males, and put by thousands into boats perforated at 
the bottom, and drowned. The waters of none of 
our rivers were made putrid and unhealthy, like the 
Loire, with bodies of the executed, so that a public 
prohibition against their use was found necessary. 
The principle had not been announced and acted 
upon, that aristocracy run in the veins of a certain 
portion of mankind, and that the surest way to intro- 
duce the millennium of freedom and happiness was 
to kill out this blood from among them. These 
exhibitions of cruelty did not belong to America. 
They were the fruit of an after period in the progress 
of mankind, and owe their origin to the boasted su- 
periority of the French in civilization. To the for- 
bearance, moderation, and good sense of our Whigs 
is in the main to be attributed their complete success 
in this country, and the striking contrast between 
the present condition of the United States and that 
of the French republic (1852). 

I have said that Mr. Atherton bore up under the 



12 

unpopularity, taunts, and ill-treatment to which his 
expressed opinions and feelings subjected him, with 
all the philosophy and good humor he could com- 
mand. But on one occasion, it is remembered, he 
retorted with a practical joke upon his assailant, 
very much to his inconvenience and displeasure. As 
on one bright spring morning he was working in his 
garden, an old gentleman by the name of C — e, on 
horseback, with his wife behind him on a pillion, 
rode up to the garden fence, accosted the Tory, and 
expressed his joy to see him digging, and wished 
every Tory in the country was obliged to dig for a 
living, and began dealing out the usual slang of the 
day. " Soho ! Mr. C— e," said Mr. Atherton, " did 
you know the girt is under your horse's belly ] " 
Alarmed at this information, he directed his wife to 
slide herself off over the tail of the horse, so as not 
to turn the saddle, and he dismounted himself with 
great care, when he discovered, to his mortification, 
that truly the girt was under the horse's belly, just 
where it ought to be. By this time Mr. Atherton 
had retreated into the house, and from the window 
enjoyed the passion the old man exhibited, and the 
difficulty he had in remounting himself and his old 
woman. Here it will not be out of place to say, my 
father was an excellent gardener, and had the best 
garden in the county. 

In these days of cool reflection, imagination can 
hardly conceive the extravagance, the absurdity, and 
folly of the suspicions that gained ready credence, in 
the then excited and jealous state of the public mind, 
against those who were suspected of Toryism. Their 
most innocent acts were considered as having some- 



13 

thing treasonable in them. Some wiseacre had re- 
ported that my father harbored in his house a British 
spy. His house was forthwith surrounded with all 
sorts .of people, with all sorts of arms, to prevent 
the escape of the spy. A committee, armed with 
pistols and swords, entered the house, and claimed 
the right to search it, to which Mr. Atherton con- 
sented, and opened to them all the recesses and clos- 
ets of the house and cellar. At that time he had 
a half-witted negro servant, who was excessively 
frightened at this array of arms, thinking the day of 
judgment had come. In his fright, he took an old 
bed-quilt, ensconced himself within it in a dark 
corner of the garret, which was the only place that 
remained to be searched. The committee approached, 
arms in hand, and discovered something moving un- 
der the quilt, which they seized, my father crying out, 
" Now you have got him ! " Poor Cato was dragged 
to the light, his face almost white with fear ; when 
they discovered they had captured the negro servant 
instead of the spy. The search was discontinued, with 
some mortification and a general laugh. At another 
time, my father wanted for family use two or three 
wooden bowls, and applied to a maker and vender of 
such articles ; he was refused, on the ground that he 
was a Tory, and that the articles were intended for 
the aid and comfort of the enemy. 

On the 3d of November, 1775, Congress passed a 
Resolve recommending to the Provincial Convention 
of New Hampshire, which had applied for advice, to 
call a full representation of the people, and to estab- 
lish such a form of government as would best pro- 
mote their happiness. 



• 
14 



During the continuance of the dispute between 
Great Britain and the Colonies, subsequently, viz. 
on the 6th of October, 1776, Congress recommended 
to the several Provincial assemblies or conventions, 
councils, or committees of safety, to arrest and secure 
every person in their respective Colonies, whose go- 
ing at large might, in their opinion, endanger the 
safety of the Colony or the liberties of America. 

In pursuance of the above resolve of November 
3d, 1775, the Revolutionary Government of the Col- 
ony of New Hampshire was established on the 5th 
day of January, 1776. As a matter of course, his 
commission as Register of Probate, and his royal 
commission as a Justice of the Peace, went by the 
board. Matthew Patten, of Bedford, was appointed 
Judge of Probate, and General Jonathan Blanchard, 
of Dunstable, was the successor of my father in the 
office of Register. 

Mr. Atherton rejoiced at this establishment of 
government, as he supposed it would deliver him 
from the control of the mob, and be followed with 
something like law and order. But on the 14th of 
March, 1776, Congress recommended a general dis- 
arming of disaffected persons throughout the Colo- 
nies. Belonging to the class of suspected persons, 
his house was searched for arms that might give 
aid to the enemy and endanger the liberties of the 
country. The only warlike weapon he possessed was 
a favorite fowling-piece, of which he was disarmed. 
This robbery was a frequent subject of lamentation, 
and he would never acknowledge that he could find 
its equal. After the war, another gun was restored to 
him, as a compensation for the one taken from him, 



15 

but in his estimation far inferior to it. To account 
for this attachment to a particular fowling-piece, it 
is only necessary to observe, that he was a sportsman, 
and particularly fond of fowling and hunting. This 
fondness for field sports he retained for many years 
after the war, till he broke his arm, by falling on to 
a rock, in attempting to cross a small brook on a 
slippery log, in his endeavor to reach a covey of 
partridges w^hich his good dog Brutus had raised. 
In his rides on horseback for business or pleasure, 
he usually carried his fowling-piece with him, resting 
the breech in a boot appended to the saddle. It is 
remembered that one year he brought home seventy 
partridges, the fruit of these excursions. 

He undoubtedly, erroneously, flattered himself 
that, under the new government, an examination 
and hearing would precede punishment. In the 
consciousness of his own innocence in every thing 
but his declared opinions, he felt secure from moles- 
tation. He had not apprehended the absolute, dic- 
tatorial, and irresponsible power of a Committee of 
Safety towards persons suspected of anti-revolution- 
ary tendencies. It should be considered, however, 
it was especially their duty to see " that the Re- 
public S)i.ffered no detriment " ; and they arrested on 
suspicion, surmise, or secret information from ene- 
mies, and imprisoned without any disclosure of evi- 
dence, any hearing or examination. It was necessary 
for them to do something, too, in order to quiet the 
public uneasiness, and perhaps to save individuals 
from greater outrage. 

It seems that he was a prisoner at Exeter, by order 
of the Committee of Safety, as a disafiected person, 



16 

dangerous to the liberties of the country. This is 
shown by his letter to my mother, July 3d, 1777, 
written shortly after his imprisonment; how soon 
after I cannot ascertain, the records of the Commit- 
tee of Safety in the Secretary's Office being in a 
most dilapidated state, and not affording the infor- 
mation. 

It would also appear that the Hillsborough prison- 
ers, viz. Jonathan Gove of New Boston, Leonard 
Whiting of Hollis, and Joshua Atherton, when the 
jail in the new county was in a condition to receive 
them, had been transferred from Exeter to Amherst ; 
for on the 5th of June, 1778, on their petition, the 
Committee liberated them from confinement, on con- 
dition that they severally entered into a recognizance 
of £ 1,000 each, with two sureties in £500 each, to 
appear at the Supreme Court of Judicature to be 
holden at Amherst by adjournment on the 21st of 
September next, " to answer to all matters and things 
that may there be objected against them, or by their 
being concerned in fabricating notes and bills in im- 
itation of the good and true bills of credit of New 
Hampshire and the United States, or any of the 
States, and altering and passing the same, &c. And 
also give bonds to the Honorable Meshecl^Weare, 
chairman of the Committee of Safety, in trust for the 
government and people of New Hampshire, in £ 1,000 
each, with two sufficient sureties, conditioned to be 
good and faithful subjects of the State, and remain 
within the limits of said County of Hillsborough, 
and shall neither do nor say any thing against the 
Independence of the United States of America, nor 
in favor of the claims of the King of Great Britain, 



17 

and that they shall not have any correspondence 
with, or m any way aid, assist, or give comfort to 
the subjects or abettors of said King." 

In his confinement at Exeter, I infer that he had 
private lodgings, from an order of the Committee of 
Safety, of October 11, 1777, that Joshua Atherton 
confine himself within ten rods of his lodgings. In 
his imprisonment at Amherst, by the connivance of 
the Committee, or some member of it, or of Deacon 
Ephraim Barker, the keeper of the prison, my father, 
I believe, found means to spend most of his nights 
with the family, and superintend his domestic con- 
cerns. 

The reader will undoubtedly notice the particu- 
larity and stringency of the foregoing recognizance 
and bond. No doubt the government were molested 
by the counterfeiting of their bills of credit, and sus- 
picion generally pointed to the Tories. It was not 
supposed that any of the sons of liberty would be 
guilty of such a breach of patriotism. If they were 
guilty and suspected, it was an easy matter to parry 
these suspicions, by turning them upon the Tories. 
The majority were willing, of course, to believe any 
surmise against them. Some of them were guilty, 
and sonje were convicted and punished, but not a 
scintilla of evidence ever appeared against Mr. 
Atherton. If his moral principles would not have 
prevented him from the commission of such a crime, 
his education and practice as a lawyer had taught 
him its folly and wickedness. 

Mr. Atherton entered into the recognizance, and 
gave the bond required, so that his person was now 
at liberty, except in the prohibition of going beyond 
3 



18 

the limits of the county. He had been for some 
time convinced that the time had passed for a com- 
promise of our controversy with Great Britain, and 
after the surrender of Burgoyne and his army, he had 
no doubt that the country would maintain its cause 
and its Declaration of Independence ; and but for 
his imprisonment, and the suspicions that were rife 
against him, would have taken the prescribed oath 
of allegiance to the State of New Hampshire and 
the United States. Soon after his liberation on his 
recognizance and bond, he petitioned the Committee 
of Safety to be released from his confinement to the 
limits of the county. The following letter addressed 
to a conspicuous member of that Committee will 
illustrate his views and objects : — 

*' Amherst, October 16th, 1778. 

" Sir : — I have committed to the care of one of 
the honorable members of the Committee of Safety, 
Jonathan Lovewell, Esq., a petition to be restored to 
the full enjoyment of that personal liberty to which 
I flatter myself every member of the state is fully 
entitled, until he has forfeited it by the perpetration 
of those crimes by which the law deprives him of 
that Ubei'fi/. And I know of no surer evidence of 
this personal right, (when evidence is required,) for 
the law presumes every man innocent until he is 
proved guilty, than a full discharge by his country, 
after inquiry made in due course of law. And this 
inquiry having been made, and a year and a half 
having been spent iti the inquiry^ in which time the 
Superior Court of Judicature has held three terms in 
this county, I think my most inveterate enemies can- 



19 

not say any advantage has been taken to impede 
the elucidation of this point. This was a period I 
have waited for with great patience, and wished for 
much more ardently than perhaps they did. It has 
arrived, although with slow advances, and the Supe- 
rior Court, which lately held its session here, wholly 
discharged me. I had all along declined making any 
advances towards taking the oath of allegiance, lest it 
should be said I purchased my discharge at the ex- 
pense of my innocence and conscience ; but being 
honorably acquitted, I conceived a favorable oppor- 
tunity presented me to return to the occupations and 
enjoyments of a good subject. I therefore took and 
subscribed the oath of allegiance last week before 
the justices of the Inferior Court of Common Pleas, 
being thereupon admitted an attorney of that court, 
as I flatter myself to the universal satisfaction of all 
men of reason and moderation and true love of their 
country hereabouts. For surely none but men of 
boisterous and unsteady tempers, who would perse- 
cute out of private pique or malice, or would foist 
in their own grudges and suspicions to the exclusion 
of those noble supporters of human society, truth 
and justice, — I say none but such men can wish to 
lessen the number of the allegiate subjects of the 
State. 

" But I must beg your pardon for running into 
sentiments which I own, with many others of like 
nature, I can hardly suppress, and come to the main 
business of this letter, which was to entreat your 
kind interposition in favor of my petition. The 
former experience I have had of your goodness, to- 
gether with your known humanity, justice, and mod- 



20 

eration, has induced me to give you this trouble. I 
shall make no apology for my presumption in this 
attempt, not because I have not the highest sense of 
the obligation you will lay me under, but because I 
really think, from the natural benevolence of your 
mind, you take a pleasure in doing acts of kindness, 
humanity, and justice. 

" I have ever thought it a peculiar infelicity that 
one of the agents of the State was my particular per- 
sonal enemy ^ a circumstance, I suppose, unknown to 
the Committee of Safety. I should hope, therefore, 
and firmly persuade myself, that they (the agents) 
never will lie under the imputation of a deficiency 
in point of duty in the elucidation of my guilt, if 
any there was to elucidate. These gentlemen, when 
clothed with their authoritative agency, are environed 
with secrecy, to wound and to destroy. This power 
can only be controlled by two things. One is, an 
elevation of mind, which shall bear them superior to 
all low arts, such as craft, fraud and malice, calumny 
and oppression, inhumanity and injustice of every 
kind, &c., &c. The other is the due and ordinary 
course of law, which I humbly presume ought ever 
to bear away the accused out of their hands. For 
however such an authority may or may not be ne- 
cessary to the well-being of the State, (an inquiry I 
shall not presume to meddle with,) certain it is, that 
their hand may fall very heavy upon individuals, who 
will be without remedy if the due course of law does 
not afi'ord them one. You see. Sir, how much reason 
I have to crave your pardon again for running into 
speculations which I did not intend, and shall no 
further intrude upon your patience, than to assure 



21 



you I have the greatest reliance upon your kind 
offices, which will confer an obligation never to be 
forgot by your most humble and most obedient ser- 
vant, 

"Joshua Atherton. 
" Hon. E. THoiMPsoN, Esq." 

The petition was undoubtedly granted immediate- 
ly. At the September term of the Superior Court, 
1778, he had been discharged from his recognizance, 
with proclamation. The judges were Meshech Weare, 
Matthew Thornton, and Leverett Hubbard. At the 
January term of the Inferior Court, 1779, he took the 
oath of allegiance and the attorney's oath, and was 
admitted to practice. 

At the Superior Court term, 1779, he took the 
oath of allegiance to the United States, and the oath 
of an attorney, and was admitted to practice in that 
court. The Inferior Court judges were James Under- 
wood, Timothy Farrar, and Jeremiah Page. The 
Superior Court judges present were Meshech Weare, 
Matthew Thornton, and John Wentworth. He was 
admitted to practice as aforesaid, notwithstanding a 
remonstrance from the towns of Lyndeborough and 
New Boston, with a few signers on each, against the 
admission of a person so dangerous to the liberties 
of the country as Joshua Atherton. These remon- 
strances were after the same form, showing that they 
had been prepared, and subscribers procured thereon, 
by some personal enemy. 

The oath of allegiance had been prescribed by the 
Council and House of Representatives, by the act of 
November 8, 1777, and was as follows: — 



" I, A. B., do solemnly swear that I do renounce, 
refuse, and abjure any Allegiance or Obedience to 
George the Third, King of Great Britain ; and that 
I will, to the utmost of my power, support, maintain, 
and defend the Independence of all the United States 
of America, as the same was set forth by the Conti- 
nental Congress, in their Declaration of the fourth of 
July, one thousand seven hundred and seventy-six. 
And I do promise that I will bear Faith and true 
Allegiance to the State of New Hampshire during 
my Residence therein ; and will disclose and make 
known to some Magistrate acting under said State 
all Treasons and Conspiracies which I shall know to 
be against the United States, or any one of them, as 
independent of the Crown of Great Britain. And 
these Things I do swear according to the plain and 
common Sense of the Words, without any Equivoca- 
tion or secret Reservation whatsoever ; upon the true 
Faith of a Christian. So help me God." 

He was now in the forty-third year of his age. 
The severity of the Revolutionary storm had passed 
over. The stings of obloquy had in a great degree 
ceased. But his business, his farm, fences, and build- 
ings, and his affairs generally, were in a most miser- 
able state of dilapidation. He lay like some thrifty 
tree uprooted by the late gale, prostrate, divested of 
its foliage, its limbs broken and scattered. His fam- 
ily was much increased, and increasing. His and 
their sufferings will hardly bear relation. Now 
better days began to dawn upon him. His business 
increased, and was soon abundant and lucrative. 

As the prospect of peace increased, the good-will 
of the community began to return to him. After the 



23 

peace, there was a gush of good feeling towards him, 
as if by way of indemnifying him for his harsh treat- 
ment. This reaction in the public mind was very 
consolatory to him. Amherst chose him one of a 
committee to form amendments to the Constitution 
of the State, which was adopted in 1783. On this 
committee he took an active part, and was a firm 
advocate of the Bill of Rights ; Magna Charta, the 
English Petition of Right, and the Revolution of 1688 
forming his heau ideal of the rights of the people. 

He had for students at law the Rev. Asa Dunbar, 
an ex-clergyman of Salem, who was admitted as an 
attorney, January term, 1783, and established himself 
at Keene, and Samuel Dana, an ex-clergyman of Gro- 
ton, who was admitted to the Superior Court, Septem- 
ber term, 1783, and settled in Amherst. It afforded 
Mr. Atherton great pleasure to contribute to the 
advancement of men for whose Revolutionary suffer- 
ings he had a fellow-feeling. 

His business now became extensive. His office 
was crowded with clients. For several years he gen- 
erally took the lead in the docket. He was a very 
successful advocate with the jury, and was often the 
leading counsel in all disputed actions on the list of 
trials. At one term he was so successful, that he 
gained every cause tried. 

The students at law in his office in the years 1784, 
1785, and 1786 were William Plumer, afterwards so 
highly distinguished by the first offices in the power 
of the people or the Legislature to confer. Mr. Plu- 
mer remained with him but a short time, as my fa- 
ther insisted upon his learning the Latin language, 
and put him upon Lilly's Latin Grammar, instead 



24 

of Blackstone ; and he, thinking this discipline un- 
necessary at his age, left, and went into the office of 
the Hon. John Prentiss of Londonderry, where no 
such requirement was made. William Coleman, 
afterwards the celebrated editor of the New York 
Evening Post, Jonathan Blanchard, son of Jotham 
Blanchard, and William Gordon, who married my 
father's eldest daughter Frances, and settled in Am- 
herst, were also his students. 

Immediately after he was discharged from his re- 
cognizance, and had taken the oath of allegiance, 
the kind feelings of the Whig town of Amherst were 
manifested towards the persecuted Tory. He was 
placed on the most important committees of the 
town, particularly in the settlement of the Rev. Jere- 
miah Barnard. He was appointed agent to conduct 
suits in the courts of law, and for and against pe- 
titions before the Legislature. These things are 
mentioned to show the sudden return of good-will 
in his fellow-townsmen. 

The Convention for the Adoption of the Constitu- 
tion of the United States met at Exeter on the 13th 
of February, 1788. Mr. Atherton was the delegate 
from the town of Amherst, to oppose the Constitu- 
tion in the form in which it was proposed. This 
Convention commenced its session at Exeter, when, 
on the 22d day of the same month, it adjourned 
to meet at Concord on the 18th day of June then 
next, and in three days, to wit, on the 21st of June, 
they completed their work. 

Parties now took the names of Federalists and 
Antifederalists. At the commencement of the Con- 
vention there was undoubtedly a majority against the 



Federal Constitution. The most influential cliarac- 
ters — General John Sullivan, President of the Con- 
vention, a man of a captivating oratory and of great 
suavity of manners ; John Langdon, a merchant of 
Portsmouth, a sterling Whig, of great popularity ; 
and Samuel Livermore, Chief Justice of our Superior 
Court, a man deservedly of more influence than any 
other man in the State in all questions of policy and 
civil administration — were strongly in favor of it. 
The talent in the Convention was decidedly on the 
side of the Federalists. The objections of their oppo- 
nents gradually grew weaker, and the vote in favor 
of the Constitution, with the recommendation of cer- 
tain amendments, was carried by a majority of ten, 
the yeas being 57 and the nays 47. 

Mr. Atherton was an active member of this Con- 
vention, and may be considered as the leader of the 
Antifederalists. His great personal objection to the 
Constitution was its recognition of slavery, of the 
domestic and foreign slave-trade, and the redelivery 
of those that should escape into another State. As 
to his objections to other parts of the Constitution, 
it is believed he was governed by the instructions 
of his town, and the advisory committee which they 
appointed to see that those instructions were carried 
into eflect. 

There was little speech-making in the Convention. 
They had no reporter. Only one attempt to give a 
speech of any member of the Convention is known. 
That was the speech of my father against the sanc- 
tion it gave to slavery and the slave-trade, very im- 
perfectly reported, no doubt, but it shows his views 
and feelings upon a part of that subject. I wish it 
4 



26 

were in my power to show what he said upon that 
article of the Constitution which requires the deliv- 
ery up to the owners of a slave escaping into an- 
other State. The following is extracted from the 
New Hampshire Statesman and Concord Register of 
July 7th, 1827. 

" IMPORTATION OF SLAVES. 

" It is greatly to be deplored that no records of the 
debates of the Convention of New Hampshire which 
adopted the Federal Constitution of the United States 
have been preserved. They would be of inestimable 
importance to the present and future inquirers into 
the origin and establishment of our political institu- 
tions. We do not recollect that a single speech on 
the adoption of any one section of the Constitution 
was ever published. By accident we lately found 
the following abstract of one made by the Honorable 
Joshua Atherton, delegate from Amherst, on that sec- 
tion relating to the importation of slaves, in the fol- 
lowing words, viz. : — 

" ' The migration or importation of such persons 
as any of the States now existing shall think proper 
to admit shall not be prohibited by Congress prior to 
1808 ; but a tax or duty may be imposed on such im- 
portation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person.' 

"Mr. Dow, the delegate from Weare, spoke very 
sensibly and feelingly against this paragraph. Sev- 
eral members on the other side spoke in favor of it, 
with remarks on what Mr. Dow had said ; after 
which Mr. Atherton, from Amherst, spoke as fol- 
lows : — 

Mr. President, — I cannot be of the opinion of 



(( i 



2T 

the honorable gentleman who last spoke, that this 
paragraph is either so just or so inoffensive as they 
seem to imagine, or that the objections to it are so 
totally void of foundation. The idea that strikes 
those who are opposed to this clause so disagreeably 
and so forcibly is, hereby it is conceived (if we ratify 
the Constitution) that we become consenters to and 
partakers in the sin and guilt of this abominable 
traffic, at least for a certain period, without any posi- 
tive stipulation that it shall even then be brought to 
an end. We do not behold in it that valuable ac- 
quisition so much boasted of by the honorable mem- 
ber from Portsmouth, " that an end is then to be put 
to slavery." Congress may be as much or more 
puzzled to put a stop to it then, than we are now. 
The clause has not secured its abolition. 

" ' We do not think ourselves under any obliga- 
tion to perform works of supererogation in the refor- 
mation of mankind ; we do not esteem ourselves un- 
der any necessity to go to Spain or Italy to suppress 
the Inquisition of those countries, or of making a 
journey to the Carolinas to abolish the detestable 
custom of enslaving the Africans ; but, Sir, we will 
not lend the aid of our ratification to this cruel and 
inhuman merchandise, not even for a day. There is 
a great distinction in not taking a part in the most 
barbarous violation of the sacred laws of God and 
humanity, and our becoming guarantees for its exer- 
cise for a term of years. Yes, Sir, it is our full pur- 
pose to wash our hands clear of it ; and however 
unconcerned spectators we may remain of such pred- 
atory infractions of the laws of our nature, however 
unfeelingly we may subscribe to the ratification of 



28 

man-stealing, with all its baneful consequences, yet 
I cannot but believe, in justice to human nature, that 
if we reverse the consideration, and bring this claimed 
power somewhat nearer to our own doors, we shall 
form a more equitable opinion of its claim to our 
ratification. 

" ' Let us figure to ourselves a company of these 
man-stealers, well equipped for the enterprise, arriv- 
ing on our coast. They seize or carry off the whole 
or part of the town of Exeter. Parents are taken 
and children left ; or possibly they may be so fortu- 
nate as to have a whole family taken and carried off 
together by these relentless robbers. What must 
be their feelings in the hands of their new and arbi- 
trary masters ] Dragged at once from every thing 
they held dear to them, stripped of every comfort of 
life, like beasts of prey, they are hurried on a loath- 
some and distressing voyage to the coast of Africa, 
or some other quarter of the globe where the great- 
est price may waft them. And here, if any thing can 
be added to their miseries, comes on the heart-break- 
ing scene ! A parent is sold to one, a son to an- 
other, a daughter to a third. Brother is cleft from 
brother, sister from sister, and parents from their 
darling offspring. Broken with every distress that 
human nature can feel, and bedewed with tears of 
anguish, they are dragged into the last stage of de- 
pression and slavery, never, never to behold the faces 
of one another again. The scene is too affecting, — 
I have not fortitude to pursue the subject.' " 

The above was probably taken from Melcher's 
*' New Hampshire Gazette," in existence during the 



29 

sessions of the Convention. It illustrates a promi- 
nent trait in my father's character, his affectionate 
family attachments. 

He was one of a committee to report amendments 
to the Constitution. Twelve amendments were re- 
ported and accepted by the Convention. On the 20th 
of June, the day on which the amendments were re- 
ported, Mr. Atherton, seconded by Mr. Abel Parker 
of Jaffrey, made a motion to the effect that the Con- 
stitution be adopted, with the amendments, — not 
without them. On motion of Samuel Livermore, this 
motion was amended by adopting the Constitution 
with a recommendation of the amendments ; which was 
carried by the majority above stated. Thus the la- 
bors of the Convention terminated. 

At the coming election for members of Congress, 
Mr. Atherton, with others, had some of the Antifed- 
eral votes. But the Antifederalists were in the wane 
from the commencement of the Convention, and the 
Federalists became an overwhelming majority in the 
State, retaining the power for many years. 

The Constitution was to go into operation on its 
ratification by nine States. Eight States had ratified 
it when the Conventions of Virginia and New Hamp- 
shire had it under consideration. Great anxiety was 
felt by Federalists in the States that had already 
adopted it, and a strong influence from these States 
was brought to bear on the Convention of New 
Hampshire, and great rejoicings were manifested 
when the ninth pillar stood upright in the colon- 
nade. Virginia adopted the Constitution on the 25th 
of June, four days after its adoption by New Hamp- 
shire, and by the same majority of ten. 



30 

On the 7th day of January, 1790, Mr. Atherton 
met with a misfortune distressing to him and his 
family. His two barns, with all his winter fodder, 
cider-mill, and farming tools, were burned by an 
incendiary, and his four cows perished in the flames. 
He was absent with his horse, attending court at 
Portsmouth. The incendiary was Michael Keef, a 
Roman Catholic Irishman, an inhabitant of the town, 
and a frequent laborer for my father. The flames 
burst forth so soon, and caused such a light, that he 
thought the safer w^ay for him was to leave the road 
and take to the fields. There was a light snow by 
which he was tracked to his back door, and a pecu- 
liar mark in his shoe clearly proved that the track 
was Keefs. Sundry letters were also produced, 
which had been left on the door-steps of divers per- 
sons in the town, threatening destruction and burn- 
ing, proved to be Keefs handwriting. These let- 
ters, badly written and worse spelt, declared that 
the poor would pay rates no longer, but that the 
poor of this county. State, and all America, the true 
sons of liberty, would kindle a fire and pay all the 
damage until they reached Boston, — threatened Rob- 
ert Means and Samuel Dana that they would see the 
Devil if they did not join the sons of liberty and let 
the poor go free from rates, — called on the ofiicers 
of the regiment to head the sons of liberty, and go 
to Portsmouth and demand that liberty which they 
fought for and never had, and threatening to burn, 
in case of refusal, — that they would burn all the 
lawyers and such as made hay while the sun shined, 
— threatening, if the court-house was moved from 
his neighborhood to the village, it would come down 



31 

with fire, and all those who had a hand in it, &c., &:c., 
and invoking the God of heaven to put down the 
rich and save the poor from taxes, and if they could 
not get their rights, there was one thing they could 
do, they could set fire. These letters were numer- 
ous, and the persons to whom they were directed 
were ordered, under penalty of being burned, to 
make them public. The court-house was removed 
from Keef 's neighborhood on to the plain, and before 
it was quite finished, was burned. This was before 
the burning of Mr. Atherton's barns. Keef was in- 
dicted for the burning of the barns, convicted, and 
sentence passed upon him, a part of which was to 
sit on the gallows with a rope round his neck. On 
the day his punishment was to be inflicted, he sharp- 
ened the case-knife that was handed in to him with 
his food, on the brick jamb of his cell, and cut his 
throat with it from ear to ear. He was also indicted 
for attempting to excite an insurrection, which in- 
dictment was discharged by his death. His defence 
for burning the barns was, that it was impossible 
Keef should be guilty of injuring Mr. Atherton, as 
he had always considered him and spoken of him as 
his best friend. The inhabitants were so alarmed at 
the production of these letters, and apprehensions 
that others, how many they knew not, were con- 
cerned with him, that they kept up a watch for some 
time, till at last they were satisfied Keef had no as- 
sociate, — that it was an infatuation confined exclu- 
sively to his own vindictive and restless temper. 
There was not ascertained the least evidence that 
he had any partisans in his burning and insurrec- 
tionary designs. My father's losses were in some 



• 
32 

degree repaired by the kind contributions of his 
neighbors. We then had no insurance offices. 

In 1791 my father was appointed a delegate to the 
Convention for Revising and Amending the Constitu- 
tion of 1783, which Convention, with the approbation 
of the people, established the Constitution of 1792. 

In 1792 he was chosen to represent the town of 
Amherst in the General Court, but being chosen 
Senator at the same time, he accepted the latter office, 
and vacated the first. In 1793 he was also chosen 
Representative and Senator, and, taking his seat in the 
Senate, he relinquished his seat in the House. Dur- 
ing his Senatorship he made an eff"ort to induce the 
Legislature to establish a court of equity, or to invest 
the Superior Court with extended equity powers. 
This efi"ort failed. The State was not then prepared 
for this novel improvement in the administration of 
justice, which, however, some years afterwards, they 
found it wise and expedient to adopt. He officiated 
as a Senator in the summer session of 1793, but re- 
signed before the fall session, having accepted the 
office of Attorney-General, to which he was appoint- 
ed June nth, 1793. 

After the Federal Constitution went into operation, 
under the auspices of Washington and Alexander 
Hamilton (of whose characters he was an ardent ad- 
mirer), and exhibited proof of a steady, wise, and firm 
government over the whole country, in obedience to 
what was with him a constitutional bias, he became 
a strong supporter of the government and its admin- 
istration. It was a part of his nature to be afraid 
of changes in government. Of all experiments he 
thought them the most hazardous. This was in him 



33 

perhaps carried to excess. He dreaded less the 
known evils of existing establishments, than the un- 
known that might result from a change. This nat- 
urally led him, when a change was effected and had 
the appearance of permanency, to acquiesce in the 
new state of things, and to become its supporter. 

In 1798 he was appointed a Commissioner for the 
County of Hillsborough, under the act of Congress, 
approved by President John Adams, July 9th, 1798, 
" to provide for the valuation of lands and dwelling- 
houses, &c., in the United States," with a view to 
the laying and collecting direct taxes, the first of 
which was a tax of two millions, laid by the act of 
July 14, 1798. These acts were extremely unpopu- 
lar in New England, particularly in New Hampshire 
and the county of Hillsborough. It was the first 
attempt of the general government to put their 
hands directly into the pockets of the people, and 
their appointment of Mr. Atherton was inopportune 
and impolitic. It was supposed his known popular- 
ity would have a tendency to allay opposition, and 
reconcile the people to this novel mode of taxa- 
tion. This was a great mistake. Circumstances had 
changed the sweetness of his popularity into gall and 
bitterness. 

The excitement which the French Revolution had 
caused throughout the country, — the joy with which 
it was hailed by one party, and the dread and horror 
with which it was viewed by the other, — the diffi- 
culties which the government had to encounter to 
preserve the neutrality of the United States, and at 
the same time show a proper resentment at the out- 
rages of England and the still greater outrages of 
5 



34 

France upon our commerce, and not side with Eng- 
land or fraternize with France, — had divided the 
country into two great parties, designated in popular 
phraseology as English and French. There seemed 
to be left no middle ground upon which a man could 
stand for his country. 

Mr. Atherton had all the English prejudices against 
the French nation. He agreed with Voltaire in his 
definition of a Frenchman, " half tiger and half mon- 
key." He had no belief that they were capable of 
self-government. The unheard-of cruelties and blood- 
thirstiness developed in the progress of their revolu- 
tion he viewed with consternation and horror, and 
looked forward to its results with the most gloomy 
forebodings. He rejoiced in Washington's proclama- 
tion of neutrality, in the Jay treaty with England in 
1794, and in the act of Congress of the 7th of July, 
1798, which dissolved our treaties with France, and 
declared them to be no longer obligatory. Even 
Washington's popularity shook under the dissatis- 
faction occasioned by this proclamation and the Jay 
treaty, which were supposed to favor England, and to 
be against fraternization with France. These meas- 
ures were too much for President John Adams to 
withstand. He was openly charged with being in the 
pay of England. British gold was supposed to have 
corrupted all those Whigs who had been the leaders 
in our Revolution, but who favored these measures. 

If the most consistent and prominent Whigs did 
not escape this obloquy, a Royalist like my father 
stood no chance. He coincided with the executive 
branch of the government. He thought it safer for 
his country and the world, that Protestant England, 



35 

the only great power in Europe that possessed any 
thing like constitutional liberty, should in that terri- 
ble struggle prevail over atheistic and Roman Catho- 
lic France, ignorant as he believed her of the princi- 
ples of civil liberty and the means of attaining it. 
All the old jealousies and prejudices of the Revolu- 
tion were revived against him, with a bitterness and 
rancor more severe than had been experienced in this 
region in the most trying crises of the war. He, 
however, discharged the duties of his office of Com- 
missioner acceptably to the government, and had the 
honor of being hung in effigy in the town of Deer- 
ing, as his friend, the venerable Samuel Livermore, 
had of being burned in effigy in the town of Ports- 
mouth, for voting for the Jay treaty in the Senate of 
the United States. 

My father s constitution failed at the age of sixty, 
that is, in 1797, in consequence of an organic af- 
fection of the heart, which from that time per- 
ceptibly enfeebled his mental, as well as his bodily 
energies. Of this he had an unpleasant hint in the 
refusal of the Legislature, at the fall session in 1800, 
to vote him his salary. By this time his inefficiency 
had become so conspicuous, that the Legislature 
wished to force him to resign. He had clung to the 
office too long for the public service and his own 
reputation. His salary, which had never exceeded 
three hundred and thirty-four dollars a year, had, 
however, become important, if not essential, to the 
sustenance of his family, which now consisted of a 
sick wife and five unmarried daughters, with small 
means for their support. He of course resigned his 
office of Attorney-General. His son-in-law, the Hon. 



36 

William Gordon, was appointed his successor, June 
12, 1801. His civil business had for years past left 
him and found its way into the office of Mr. Gordon, 
who commenced practice in Amherst in 1788, and 
into the office of his son, Charles Humphrey, who 
opened his office in the same town in the fall of 
1797. After 1800 he exercised the office of a magis- 
trate, and occasionally that of a justice of the peace 
throughout the State. But his disease was very op- 
pressive, and at times exceedingly depressed him, and 
by its gradual encroachments wore upon him and 
terminated his life on the 3d of April, 1809, when he 
was nearly seventy-three years of age. 

My father's children who arrived at maturity were 
Frances, born October 31, 1766; she was the wife 
of the Hon. William Gordon, and after his decease 
she married the Hon. Benjamin West of Charlestown, 
whom she survived ; — Charles Humphrey, born the 
14th of August, 1773, married Mary Ann Toppan, 
the daughter of the Hon. Christopher Toppan of 
Hampton, and who deceased in 1817; — Abigail, 
born October, 1775, who was the wife of the Hon. 
Amos Kent of Chester, whom she now survives ; — 
Rebecca Wentworth, born August, 1778, now the 
wife of Matthias Spalding, M. D., of Amherst ; — 
Nancy Holland, born March, 1782, unmarried ; — 
Catharine, born June, 1784, who married Colonel 
David McGregor Means, whom she survived but a 
few years ; — and Elizabeth Willard, born May, 1786, 
who married the Hon. Ralph H. French, both now 
(1852) living. The death of his wife in 1801, and 
that of his son-in-law," Mr. Gordon, in 1802, were to 
him and his whole family calamities the most severe. 



37 

Frances left only one child, William Gordon. 
Charles Humphrey has two children, viz. Charles G. 
and Mary Ann T. The widow Abigail Kent has six 
children, viz. Abigail A., the widow of Robert Means, 
Esq., Mary M., the wife of James McGregor, Frances 
G., the wife of Thomas M. Smith, Amos, George, and 
Frederick. Rebecca W. Spalding has three children, 
viz. Edward, Alfred, and Abigail A, the wife of the 
Rev. J. G. Davis. Catharine, now deceased, who 
married David McGregor Means, deceased, has now 
surviving eight children, viz. Robert, Mary Jane, the 
wife of the Rev. F. A. Adams, Nancy Ellis, James, 
William G., Eliza Frances, the wife of E. B. Big- 
elow, Esq., Helen McGregor, now the wife of the 
Rev. Daniel Parker Noyes, and Rebecca, the widow 
of Robert Appleton. Elizabeth W. French has for 
children George A. and Charles. 

Mr. Atherton in stature was about five feet seven 
inches in height, with a heavy brow, hazle-gray eyes, 
and prominent nose, broad over the shoulders and 
chest, with a comely expansion of body and waist. 
His nether limbs were rather small for the weie;ht 
above them. Walking was not a favorite exercise 
with him. The saddle, till he grew too infirm to 
mount his horse, and then a chaise, was his vehicle. 
He was reputed not only a good-looking, but a hand- 
some man. The last tie-wigs noticed in this county 
were worn by him and his friend, the Hon. Ebenezer 
Champney. His manners were of the old school of 
English gentlemen, quite diff'erent from our naked 
and plain republican manners. He was remarkable 
for his social qualities. His courtesy and urbanity 
will ever be remembered by those who were familiar 



• 
38 

with him. His hospitality was unbounded. The 
clergy, the gentlemen of the bar, the judges, oiRcers 
of the Revolution, and every stranger of distinction 
within the reach of his invitations, were his welcome 
guests. He was a good liver, and delighted in com- 
pany at his well-cooked dinners. He liked a good 
glass of wine, and the grace and pleasantry with 
which he mingled his bowl of punch and distrib- 
uted it among his guests are vivid in my recollec- 
tion. With all his inclination to good cheer, he 
was never known to indulge to excess either in eat- 
ing or drinking. His rule seems to have been to 
spend in hospitality and good dinners all his earnings. 
His course of life seemed unfortunately to say, " Let 
us enjoy to-day, for we know not what to-morrow will 
bring forth." Whether this was a lesson taught him 
by the Revolution, in which all the hopes and aspi- 
rations that could fill the bosom of an educated 
young man were blasted, forcibly impressing upon 
him the vicissitudes and uncertainties of life, or 
whether it was a part of his nature, and would so 
have led him to conduct under any circumstances, 
I have never been able satisfactorily to determine. 

He was a good scholar, and his literary taste was 
refined. As a sound lawyer and advocate, his rank 
was high. He had the best law library in the State, 
out of the town of Portsmouth. He was not ordi- 
narily eloquent or fluent ; his voice was not the best ; 
but when his feelings were aroused, and their excite- 
ment did not overcome him, he was not only elo- 
quent, but forcible. He treated the general run of 
his clients with great distance, such as would not be 
suffered in these days. At one period of his life, 
he was a most successful advocate with the jury. 



39 

He was not what would be called a religious man, 
if an implicit belief in the tenets then most prevalent 
and an ostentatious profession of superior piety were 
necessary to gain him that appellation. But it was 
by his influence that the Rev. Jeremiah Barnard was 
settled as the minister of Amherst, March 3, 1780. 
His preference for Mr. Barnard resulted from the 
superior liberality of his views compared with those 
of the other candidates. He was a member of no 
church, but a constant attendant on public worship. 
He revered the character of Jesus and the morality 
of his Gospel, and was a firm believer in the immor- 
tality of the soul ; but to many of the articles of the 
religious creeds then and now generally inculcated, 
he never seemed able to yield his assent. He was 
accustomed to direct the schoolmaster and the clergy- 
man not to teach his children the Primer catechism 
then universally in use. 

My father, when on the circuit or short journeys, 
was a most kind and affectionate correspondent with 
his family, and with his children when they were ab- 
sent on visits or at school. Without the prosing of 
moral lectures, they were full of affectionate advice as 
to their cheerfulness, health, and conduct, as circum- 
stances afforded opportunity. In one he says : " Shall 
I give you parental ^advice ? It is difficult to lay 
down rules that can be of any service. A good heart 
and a good degree of knowledge are the best rules. 
Circumstances are so various, to be tied to a set of 
rules is more embarrassing than the circumstances 
themselves. But if I should give a rule, I would 
say. Never do what your heart disapproves." 

To a child in affliction for the loss of a very dear 



40 

friend he says : " Our friends must leave us, or we 
must leave them. The sorrows of the living avail not 
the departed friend. Vain are all human calculations, 
even upon the most flattering prospects of happiness. 
Still it is best, it is right, that we should make the 
best use we can of this miserable world ; that we 
should create as many innocent enjoyments as our 
ingenuity can add to the substantial blessings of this 
sublunary pilgrimage. If there is not a better life, 
if there is not a life of eternal happiness, attainable 
by the wise and the good, — all surely — all is noth- 
ing. But there is." 

To another, sorrowing for the loss of her husband, 
he wrote : " What will it avail to tell you to summon 
all your fortitude to your assistance 1 Surely none 
can need it more. The loss will be irreparable to us 
all, but more especially to you. I have ever thought 
it of little avail to reason with the feelings of the 
heart. Yet perhaps something may be done. There 
is always an irresistible consideration in the great 
events of Providence, that they cannot he altered. 
Our tears, our deepest distress, reach not the de- 
parted friend. They cannot alter ivhat is. They 
may indeed be injurious to ourselves, and for that 
reason as much as possible to be avoided. Reason 
herself perhaps increases our grief, and all her ad- 
monitions are at best but idle tales. The heart is 
too deeply wounded to listen to her cold and formal 
lessons. Are we, then, without remedy ? Far other- 
wise. The great Ruler and Disposer of all things 
has not left the sons and daughters of men with- 
out a healing angel, and has said unto them. Time 
shall heal thy sorrows. Heaven is but claiming its 



41 

own. Are we not too selfish, to murmur at the de- 
cree that makes our friend eternally happy 1 All 
has been done that could be done ; the rest must be 
left to the disposal of Heaven." 

To a daughter at school he writes : " You are now 
treading the pleasing paths of knowledge, — I do not 
hesitate to believe, with industry and delight. Recol- 
lect, nothing valuable is attained without industry and 
labor. But the compensation in the struggle to acquire 
knowledge is beyond computation. Ignorance is the 
most frightful monster that ever preyed upon the hu- 
man race. Who are despised ? The ignorant. iWho 
are almost useless, nay, a burden upon society 1 The 
ignorant. Who are the vicious and extremely wicked "? 
The ignorant. Knowledge and virtue exalt the mind 
and delight the heart, assimilate the possessor to 
angels, and, if other possessions and enjoyments are 
denied, knowledge and virtue cannot be taken away 
by the cross accidents too often experienced in life. 
I well know advice is justly expected from a parent ; 
but alas ! it is generally too distant a guardian. My 
advice will be short. Learn, my dear child, to gov- 
ern thyself This will be a counsellor always at 
hand. Do nothing to repent of Repentance is a 
cruel mistress. Blessed innocence what a lovely 
companion ! Be careful of your health. Avoid the 
evening air, unless very pure. Be cheerful, and di- 
vert yourself in-doors ; and I permit you to remem- 
ber that all innocent diversions, when useful business 
is not on hand, are almost a duty, and are a blessing 
afforded us by the Author of our being, to smooth 
the rough paths of human life, and restore our fac- 
ulties to vigor and activity. May you enjoy, my 
6 



• 
42 



dear child, every felicity compatible with your pres- 
ent situation ; and be assured my affection for you is 
unbounded." 

In his absences, his letters frequently express his 
anxiety to be with "his delightful family." These 
letters are written with ease and elegance, and 
breathe the fondest and most affectionate regard. 
If collected, they would form an interesting volume 
of letters from a father to his children. 

In 1789 my father procured the incorporation of a 
literary institution in Amherst, and gave it the name 
of the AuREAN Academy. Its first instructor was 
Charles Walker, a graduate at Cambridge in the 
class of 1789, the son of Judge Timothy Walker of 
Concord, a good classical scholar, and a gentleman. 
The second instructor was Daniel Staniford, a grad- 
uate of Harvard College, a ripe scholar in all the 
branches then taught, and afterwards a tutor in the 
same University. The third was Jesse Appleton, 
afterwards the venerable and respected President of 
Brunswick College. My father and Colonel Eobert 
Means were principally interested in this excellent 
school on account of their families, mostly females, 
and here their children received an excellent ele- 
mentary education, under the most competent in- 
structors. The support of the institution depended 
chiefly upon them, and when their interest in it on 
account of their own families ceased, they became 
disinclined to assume the expense of the school ; and 
no others coming forward to take upon themselves 
the burden, the gold of the Aurean Academy became 
dim, and at last turned into dross, and the academy 
was abandoned in 1801. 



43 

It may be difficult for the generations that have 
arisen since the Revolutionary War, who now occu- 
py the vast domains of the United States, and hold 
in their hands and have the control of the destinies 
of the country, and perhaps of the world, — now that 
the United States have a firm general government 
operating directly upon the people, fully competent 
to the exigencies of peace or war, — now that their 
territory extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific, 
from the Gulf of Mexico to the Northern lakes and 
Oregon, — now that its population has increased to 
twenty-three millions of the most active and intel- 
ligent people, living under our own vine and fig- 
tree without any to molest or make us afraid, that 
the world ever witnessed in any nation, — now that 
every species of industry is open to be pursued by 
every citizen without restraint, as his genius and 
inclination shall direct, — now that all the improve- 
ments of ancient and modern times find a home among 
us, and give us a progress and power more rapid and 
more complete than any other people the sun ever 
shone upon, and have rendered our Revolution the 
most beneficent and remarkable epoch in the history 
of the human race, the Christian era alone excepted, 
— I say, it may be difficult for these generations to 
justify, or even to palliate, the opinions of those who 
were opposed to the war and a separation from the 
mother country. But candid and reflecting persons 
will pause and consider, and weigh well the facts of 
history. They will remember that the name of Tory 
was affixed to those who were unfriendly to a breach 
with the mother country before the war; that there 
was then no question between a republic and a mon- 



44 

archy; and that there was then no hostility to a 
monarchy, as such. The uncompromising and ar- 
dent desire for republicanism was a plant of later 
growth. Franklin, a few days before the battle of 
Lexington, said that " he had more than once trav- 
elled from one end of the continent to the other, and 
kept a variety of company, eating and drinking and 
conversing with them freely, and never had heard in 
any conversation, from any persons, drunk or sober, 
the least expression of a wish for a separation, or a 
hint that such a thing would be advantageous to 
America." Mr. Jay says, that, until the second pe- 
tition of Congress in 1775, " I never heard an Amer- 
ican of any class, or of any description, express a 
wish for the independence of the Colonies. The 
country was impelled to independence by necessity^ 
not choice^ Jefferson affirmed, that, " before the 
commencement of hostilities, I never heard a whis- 
per of a disposition to separate from Great Britain, 
and often, that its possibility was contemplated with 
affliction by all." Washington in 1774, in the Fair- 
fax County resolves, complained " that malevolent 
falsehoods were propagated by the ministry to prej- 
udice the mind of the king, particularly that there is 
an intention in the American Colonies to set up for 
independent states." Mr. Madison in 1776 says, " It 
has always been my impression, that a reestablish- 
ment of the colonial relations to the parent country, 
as they were previous to the controversy, was the 
real object of every class of the people, till the de- 
spair of obtaining it." John Adams said, "There 
was not a moment during the Revolution when I 
would not have given every thing I possessed for a 



45 

restoration to the state of things before the contest 
began, provided we could have had a sufficient secu- 
rity for its continuance." So it appears the Whigs 
were willing to remain colonists to the British mon- 
archy, if they could have had their rights secured to 
them. The commencement of hostilities was un- 
doubtedly for a redress of grievances. The Declara- 
tion of Independence was a thing of necessity, to vest 
in the Colonies, while the controversy was red with 
blood, the right of aggressive war, and to enable 
them to form foreign alliances and procure foreign 
succors. 

If the policy of the Great Commoner, Pitt, could 
have been followed, if he could have been reinstated 
in the control of foreign affairs, all would have been 
peace and quietness, although at some future time 
we should unquestionably have fallen off from the 
parent stock, like fruit fully ripe. But unfortunately, 
George the Third came to the throne with high no- 
tions of his own prerogatives, and, with an obstinacy 
common to his family, was determined to coerce the 
Colonies, and lent his ear to those whose opinions 
flattered his own. Pitt, the greatest and most suc- 
cessful minister England has ever had, and who add- 
ed more laurels to the British crown than any other 
leader of the Cabinet, was left in a minority, and com- 
pelled to resign. He never afterwards had any con- 
trol in foreign affairs. Before the close of the war, 
he was so broken by disease and age, that he could 
take no effective part in politics. Conscious of his 
own superiority, he would not belong to a ministry 
whose counsels he could not control. 

Measures were prosecuted on the part of Great 



46 

Britain with unrelenting rigor, to force the Colonies 
to compliance. Almost miraculously, the war termi- 
nated disastrously to her. The Colonies were like 
the stripling David, who planted his sling-stone in 
the forehead of Goliath. The Almighty seemed visi- 
bly to stretch out his arm to keep, protect, and suc- 
cor us in the palm of his hand. 

Let us not forget the hazards of the war and our 
hairbreadth escapes ; — that we were thirteen dis- 
united colonies, antipodes in climate, industry, and 
habits ; that we had no general government, the 
Congress being little more than an advisory commit- 
tee ; that the tardiness of the Colonies in furnishing 
their quotas of men, money, and provisions, and ma- 
terials of war was afflicting and most discouraging ; 
that but for the exertions and intrepidity of Massachu- 
setts, the cause must have sunk ; that she furnished 
nearly one quarter part of the soldiers employed in 
the war, — 40,000 more than Virginia, 55,000 more 
than Pennsylvania, and 62,000 more than New York ; 
and that the continued and successful union of these 
Colonies during a seven years' war is among the mir- 
acles of confederations. 

It is to be remembered, also, that the army were 
unpaid, unfed, unclothed, and unsheltered, so that 
they were on the point of dissolution, and Washing- 
ton himself wrote, he might be under the necessity 
of flying beyond the Alleghanies with a few select 
followers. Nor should the dissatisfaction manifested 
by the army at Newburg, when they were on the 
point of taking all power into their own hands, of 
doing themselves justice and avenging their insuffer- 
able wrongs, escape our recollection; nor the fact 



47 

that no man but George Washington that the world 
ever produced, — no man who had less of the abnega- 
tion of self than he, and whose faculties, intellectual 
and moral, and whose affections and passions, were 
a little differently balanced from his, — no man who 
had less of the veneration and respect of the army, 
and who had acquired in a less degree the confi- 
dence, affection, and love of every man, woman, and 
child in the country, — could have rebuked the rising 
conspiracy, and caused the sentiment of patriotism in 
this neglected and suffering army, with arms in their 
hands and with a consciousness of their power, to 
triumph over the deep sense of the neglect of their 
country and the sufferings of themselves and their 
families. No man but exactly such a man as God 
gave us in Washington could have effected this tri- 
umph of patriotism over feelings exasperated by 
neglect and injustice, or could have brought the con- 
test with Great Britain to a favorable close. Let us 
always remember Washington and his patriotic army 
with the gratitude of our inmost hearts ! 

But our dangers and hazards were not yet over. 
After the peace, the country was in a most exhausted 
and destitute condition. The people were impover- 
ished, and unable to pay their debts or taxes. There 
was no currency ; the paper-money bills of credit, 
with which the army were paid, depreciated in value, 
so that one hundred dollars would not purchase what 
may now be bought for a pistareen. Mobs surround- 
ed our courts of law to forbid the issuing of execu- 
tions, and our halls of legislation to require the ab- 
rogation of debts and of taxes. For the want of a 
currency, tender and sumptuary laws were the order 



48 

of the day. On the 18th of January, 1777, the General 
Court of New Hampshire passed a law affixing prices 
to all the necessaries of life, and to all articles which 
the people had been accustomed to sell and buy. 
Labor was fixed at three shillings per day in sum- 
mer ; severe penalties were established for taking 
any more, or for refusing to take the paper money 
of Congress or of the Colonies, or for asking less in 
coin than they would take in paper money. This act 
recited that " the exorbitant price of labor and the 
necessaries of life, unless speedily remedied, would 
be attended with the most fatal and pernicious con- 
sequences." This and similar laws were intended to 
uphold the depreciating currency of paper money; 
but their effect was, without stopping the deprecia- 
tion, to put the little coin then in the hands of the 
people out of sight, and to cause all persons to hold 
on to what they had, and not to sell any thing. An 
attempt was made to remedy this difficulty by enact- 
ing, that, if there was any good cause to suspect, that 
any person had more than should be judged neces- 
sary for the use of himself, family, and dependants, 
searches might be made, and such property forcibly 
taken for public use and other purposes ; than which 
a more tyrannical law never disgraced the legislation 
of a free people. Barter, or the exchange of one ar- 
ticle for another, was the only trade in New Hamp- 
shire. Molasses made of cornstalks supplied the 
place of several articles of importation. These op- 
pressive laws were of short continuance, for the 
Whigs, who enacted them, found that they increased 
tenfold the evils which they were intended to rem- 
edy. They are referred to here to show our impov- 



49 

erishment and distresses in the second year of the 
war. After the war had been terminated several 
years, such was the dissatisfied state of the country 
that one army of five thousand and another of ten 
thousand were assembled in Massachusetts to control 
the government of the State. 

In this day of dissatisfaction and darkness, the 
Constitution of the United States came forth under 
the recommendation of Washington, the President 
of the Convention which formed it, as the anchor of 
hope, for the salvation of the country. The provis- 
ions of the Constitution were so novel, and what the 
people had been so unaccustomed to, who were even 
now almost unprepared for any thing that could be 
called a general government, that it was viewed with 
great jealousy. North Carolina rejected it, and the 
meagre majorities by which it was ratified in New 
York, Virginia, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire 
makes it fair to presume, it was by the recommenda- 
tion of Washington and the confidence placed in him 
by the country that its ratification was procured in a 
sufficient number of States. 

Now occurred the French Eevolution. The people 
were infatuated by the siren sound of Liberty, Equal- 
ity, and Fraternity, with which all their proclama- 
tions and acts were prefaced. French emissaries 
were spread throughout the country, the immediate 
object of whom was to entice the United States to 
join France in the war with England, and to give 
her the control of American aff'airs. 

Then comes the Proclamation of Neutrality by 
George Washington, President of the United States, 
which almost shook him from his throne in the af- 
7 



50 

fections of the people. His popularity surmounts 
the shock, and it is undoubted that no man but 
Washington could have breasted the terrific bias 
of the country to French fraternization, the conse* 
quences of which we are now all able fairly to appre- 
ciate. 

A similar crisis occurred on the Jay treaty with 
England in 1794. The alternative was, the ratifica- 
tion of this treaty, or a war with England and a union 
with France. It is believed that the ratification of 
this treaty, and the carrying of it into effect, was 
owing exclusively to the influence of Washington. 
The partisans of France gnashed their teeth at 
Washington, and vented their disappointment by 
the most severe denunciations. 

Even to us of the present advancing and, I trust, 
not over-confident generation, — to us pondering on 
these things, the question comes with an appealing 
force, — Might not a man who was under an oath 
of allegiance to the British crown, — who was ac- 
quainted with the history of nations, and knew the 
dangers of revolution by violence, and saw that the 
Colonies stood between the two most powerful na- 
tions of the earth, the object of their grasping wish- 
es and a bone of contention to their lust of territory 
and power, — honestly, conscientiously, and under 
the behests of a strong sense of duty, have adopted 
the feelings and sentiments and pursued the course 
which Mr. Atherton did 1 

The officers and Whigs of the Eevolution, those 
who had seen and felt the hazards of the war, and 
who witnessed the exhausted, impoverished, and dis- 
satisfied condition of the country after the peace, did 



51 

not manifest any feeling of condemnation towards 
those who had acted the part of my father. This is 
clearly shown by the public favor that clustered about 
him immediately upon his acknowledging the State 
government, and which followed him until the divis- 
ion of the country into English and French partisans 
by the war between England and France, in which 
England contended for her existence, not only against 
French arms, but against the more insidious and 
dangerous invasion of French principles. When the 
Revolutionary War was over, and people began to 
think calmly of the hazards we had run and the dis- 
tresses of the country, many were the Whigs who 
took my father by the hand, and expressed their sur- 
prise that they had not been of the same way of think- 
ing with him. Shall the successors of the Whigs of 
the Revolution, and the inheritors of the fruits of 
their labors, form a less lenient judgment than the 
Revolutionists themselves 1 

I can trace the genealogy of my father no farther 
back than to his great-grandfather, James Atherton. 
The first thing we know with certainty of this James 
Atherton is, that he was a tanner in that part of 
Dorchester now included in Milton ; that before 
1653 he was an inhabitant of what was then called 
Nashua ; that in 1653 he, with twenty-five other in- 
habitants of Nashua, procured its incorporation by 
the name of Lancaster; that a large portion of his 
real estate in that town fell on that part of the 
Nashua called Still River, in that part of Lancaster 
now Harvard ; that this estate was divided into sev- 
eral farms, now owned by his descendants ; that here 



52 

he followed farming and tanning ; that he was a 
married man, and his wife named Hannah ; that 
here, on the 13th of May, 1656, his son Joshua, my 
father's grandfather, was born ; that he signed the 
church covenant in Lancaster in company with Ste- 
phen Day, the earliest printer in New England ; that 
here he continued until, in King Philip's war, — and 
when Lancaster was sacked by the Indians, the house 
of their clergyman, Mr. Rolandson, burned, and his 
wife taken captive, probably about the year 1676, — 
he returned with his family to the old homestead 
in Milton. Here he paid a respectable tax till the 
year 1703, when he removed with his wife Hannah 
to Sherburne in the county of Middlesex, and lived 
with his daughter Deborah, who was married to 
Samuel Bullard of that place. He died at the age of 
eighty-six, as appears by the probate of his will. He 
never returned to his farm and lands in Lancaster, 
but conveyed them to his sons James and Joshua, 
" to settle them in the world," as his deed expresses 
it. His son Joshua had married Mary Gulliver of 
Milton, where he was taxed, sometimes in partner- 
ship with his father, till 1685. He had some children 
born at Milton, and about 1687 moved to Lancaster, 
into the old homestead which his father, James, had 
occupied there, and followed farming and the trade 
of a tanner. This Joshua had a numerous family, 
of which Peter, my grandfather, was the youngest. 

The James Atherton first named above was proba- 
bly a younger brother of Humphrey Atherton, so 
much distinguished in the early history of Massa- 
chusetts. It is believed that he arrived with Hum- 
phrey at Boston on the 17th day of August, 1635, 



53 



in the ship James, from Bristol, in which was the 
E,ev. Richard Mather, with a hundred other emigrant 
passengers. That James was the brother of Hum- 
phrey is somewhat confirmed by the tradition in the 
families of his descendants, by their keeping up the 
name of Humphrey among their children, and by 
the fact that Humphrey Atherton in 1653, and sub- 
sequent to that time, was one of the Assistants or 
Council, and had the location, settling, and naming 
of Lancaster, which probably was their place of resi- 
dence in England. It might, however, have been in 
Atherton, in the same county. It was under his 
patronage that his brother James settled at Nashua, 
afterwards Lancaster. 

As the name of Humphrey Atherton has been 
introduced into this memoir, and as he was a dis- 
tinguished character in the early settlement of the 
Province of Massachusetts Bay, and there is so much 
singularity in his life and death, I do not hesitate to 
conclude this memoir with some notices of him, de- 
rived from the first writers and historians of the 
Province, to be found in the Collections of the Mas- 
sachusetts Historical Society, and principally taken 
from Winthrop, Hubbard, and Johnson's " Wonder- 
working Providence." 

As has already been stated, he is supposed to have 
arrived at Boston, with his wife and some children, on 
the 17th of August, 1635, in the ship James, Captain 
Taylor, and pitched his residence at Dorchester, about 
three miles from Boston. He was affianced to his 
future wife, Mary, when he was six years of age and 
she was five. Their nuptials were consummated 
when he was between fourteen and fifteen years of 



54 

age and she between thirteen and fourteen, so that 
when their eldest child was one year old, the ages of 
all three amounted to thirty years. He signed the 
covenant, and was admitted a member of the Rev. 
Richard Mather's church, in 1636, and was soon after 
made Deacon; he was admitted a freeman in 1637, 
probably as soon as he arrived at twenty-one years 
of age. He was a member of the Ancient and Hon- 
orable Artillery Company, and was promoted therein 
till he was commander of the company from 1650 to 
1658. He was leader and commander of the first 
train-band formed in Dorchester, in 164:4l. He was 
commander of the Sufi"olk regiment, and was after 
appointed to command the military forces of the 
Colony, with the title of Major-General, and was 
the chief military officer in New England. He was 
elected the first deputy from Dorchester to the Great 
and General Court in 1648, and for the eight follow- 
ing years. Having estate in Springfield, he repre- 
sented that town in 1653, and was Speaker of the 
Assembly the same year. He was employed in sev- 
eral expeditions against the Narraganset Indians, 
and when they became tributary to Massachusetts, 
he was several times sent to collect the tribute of 
wampum. On one occasion, when the payment of 
the tribute had been greatly delayed, he took twenty 
men with him in order to collect it. The Indian 
sachems, with a large number of their warriors, were 
in council, devising means to avoid the payment. 
Captain Atherton, impatient at the delay and eva- 
sive answers, suspecting that evil was brewing, and 
being refused admittance to their presence, marched 
with his twenty men to the council wigwam, and, 



55 

leaving his men outside, with pistol in hand rushed 
through the crowd of armed Indians, two hundred 
or more, and seized Passacus, the chief, by the hair 
of his head, asseverating " that, if any one stirred, 
he would quickly speed him," and drew him forth 
out of the wigwam. The Indians were so astonished 
at this boldness, that no resistance was made, and 
" the tribute was paid in full, and the English re- 
turned in safety." He is represented as " a man 
of a cheerful spirit, very lively and courageous, 
slow of speech, and entire for the country, and of 
great presence of mind." " He and Edward Tom- 
lins were sent to treat with Miantonomo, a sachem 
of the Narragansets, and he questioned him on the 
Ten Commandments." He supplied the place of 
Gookin several years as superintendent of the pray- 
ing Indians. "In 1645 the Commissioners of the 
four United Colonies appointed a council of war, and 
placed Captain Standish at its head; Mason of Con- 
necticut and Leverett and H. Atherton of Massachu- 
setts were his colleagues." " With Lieutenant Clap 
he was empowered to lay out the Indian plantation 
at Punkapoag (now Stoughton), not exceeding six 
thousand acres of land." 

Major-General Atherton, with some associates, pur- 
chased and held in mortgage from the Indian sa- 
chems the whole Narraganset country. The title 
was questioned, and afterwards confirmed judicially 
and legislatively. But when Rhode Island became 
vested with the jurisdiction, they ousted Atherton's 
tenants and assumed the ownership of the towns, dis- 
posed of the lands to whom they pleased, and cheat- 
ed his heirs out of the whole. He was reputed rich 



56 



when he arrived in New England, and the inventory 
of his estate was quite respectable for that time. 
About his house were discovered fixtures which give 
rise to the conjecture that he was a soap-boiler by 
trade ; but these fixtures might well have been placed 
there by some one of his sons, in the lifetime of the 
father. 

His death was melancholy. The accounts of it do 
not perfectly agree. One is, that at a review of the 
whole military force of the Province, then consisting 
of ten companies of foot and two companies of horse, 
his horse came against a cow, threw him, and broke 
his neck. Another is, that the accident happened on 
his return from the review to his domicile at Dor- 
chester. It was considered a "judgment"; and a day 
of humiliation, fasting, and prayer throughout New 
England was the consequence. 

He had twelve children. The names of only 
nine of them have come down to us, viz. Jonathan, 
Katharine, Rest, Increase, Thankful, Hope, Con- 
sider, Watching, and Patience. What a galaxy of 
names for a major-general and a warrior ! They 
prove him to have been a full-blooded Puritan. He 
would have fought well under Cromwell. His three 
daughters married, one a Trobridge, one a Mather, 
one a Swift, names of note in the Colony. His sons 
or their descendants do not appear to have arrived 
at any distinction, save only that of mariners, farm- 
ers, mechanics, and honest men, unless his son Hope 
may be excepted, who was a graduate at Cambridge in 
1665, taught the grammar school at Dorchester, and 
was settled in the ministry at Hadley. It is related of 
him, that a company of Indians, in Philip's war, were 



57 

in the neighborhood of Hadley with the intention of 
attacking the town ; he, being delirious, rushed into 
the midst of them with his gown and band, and with 
great energy of action and incoherent speech and 
exclamations so terrified the savages that they dis- 
persed, thinking him to be an emissary of the Great 
Spirit. So Hadley was saved at this time. After- 
wards a more resolute company of Indians surround- 
ed the town, and a battle ensued, in which the Eng- 
lish were victorious. 

There is now to be deciphered in the old bury- 
ing-yard at Dorchester the following epitaph on 
Humphrey Atherton, written, probably, by Richard 
Mather, the teacher of his church at Dorchester : — 

" Here lies our Captain and Major 
Of Suffolk was withall, 
A Godly Magistrate was he 
And Major General. 

Two Troops of Horse came here 
Such love his worth did crave, 
Ten companies of Foot also 
Marched mourning to his Grave. 

Let all that read be sure to keep 

The faith as he hath done 

He lives now crowned with Christ, his name 

Was Humphrey Atherton. 

Humphrey Atherton departed this Life Sepf. 17th, 166 L" 



The foregoing Memoir was written by Charles 
Humphrey Atherton, in the winter and spring of 
1852. 

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